Man arrested after Rothko painting vandalised at the Tate Modern

Vladimir Umanets, who claimed responsibility for the vandalism of a Mark Rothko painting at the Tate Modern gallery in London, has been detained on suspicion of causing criminal damage.

A Tate Modern visitor tweeted a picture of the graffiti on the Rothko work (Picture: Tim Wright/Twitter)

Mr Umanets, 26, was apprehended in Worthing on Monday night by Sussex Police and was held for a few hours before being transferred to London for further questioning.

He stepped forward following a Scotland Yard investigation into the graffiti but insists he is not a ‘vandal’.

The Rothko work, believed to be Black On Maroon (1958), was ‘tagged’ at the gallery in London on Sunday with the words: ‘Vladimir Umanets ’12, A Potential Piece of Yellowism’, appearing to refer to a blog site on conceptual art.

In defence of his scrawl, Mr Umanets said: ‘Some people think I’m crazy or a vandal, but my intention was not to destroy or decrease the value, or to go crazy.

‘I am not a vandal.’

Speaking on ‘Yellowism’, of which he claims to be one of the founders, he continued: ‘Yellowism is not art, and Yellowish isn’t anti-art. It’s an element of contemporary visual culture.

‘It’s not an artistic movement. It’s not art, it’s not reality, it’s just Yellowism. It can’t be presented in a gallery of art, it can be presented only in a Yellowistic chambers.

Mark Rothko’s works have previously sold for millions (Picture: Glenn Copus)

‘The main difference between Yellowism and art is that in art you have got freedom of interpretation, in Yellowism you don’t have freedom of interpretation, everything is about Yellowism, that’s it.

‘I am a Yellowist. I believe what I am doing and I want people to start talking about this. It was like a platform.’

The incident occurred during broad daylight – much to the disbelief of watching art fan Tim Wright.

‘This guy calmly walked up, took out a marker pen and tagged it. Surreal,’ he tweeted.

‘We gave a description to the gallery. Very bizarre, he sat there for a while then just went for it and made a quick exit.’

The gallery was closed for a time as the police were called in to investigate.

Mr Umanets’ defence went on: ‘I don’t need to be famous, I don’t want money, I don’t want fame, I’m not seeking seeking attention. Maybe I would like to point people’s attention on what it’s all about, what is Yellowism, what is art?

The incident took place at London’s Tate Modern (Picture: Ian Britton)

‘I believe that from everything bad there’s always a good outcome so I’m prepared for that but obviously I don’t want to spend a few months, even a few weeks, in jail.

‘But I do strongly believe in what I am doing, I have dedicated my life to this.’

A spokeswoman for the gallery said: ‘We can confirm that at 3.25pm this afternoon there was an incident at Tate Modern in which a visitor defaced one of Rothko’s Seagram murals by applying a small area of black paint with a brush to the painting.

‘The police are currently investigating the incident.’

Rothko’s works have previously fetched millions of pounds at auction.

Earlier this year, the Russian-American’s Orange, Red, Yellow was sold for £53.8million at Christie’s in New York – the highest amount ever paid for a piece of post-war art at auction.